The Pink Night of the Romagna Coastal Region: co-creating events and destination branding

The present study contributes to unravelling this issue by drawing attention towards a field of knowledge that seldomly has been put into relation with the co-creation of destinations, namely the one about events and festivals, which is becoming a relevant field of studies (Getz, 2007). In fact, the extent to which the analysis of events and festivals can contribute to the advance of tourism and tourism marketing has usually been neglected in literature.By framing festivals as a medium in the process of destination co-creation, the paper highlights how their careful examination can provide fresh perspectives on the mechanisms through which tourist destinations are being continuously reproduced by a variety of actors, all actively producing and consuming a joint “co-experience” (Battabarbee & Koskinen, 2005). By so doing, this paper responds to Saraniemi and Kylänen (2011: 140), who encouraged researchers and practitioners to further deepen the study of the intertwining of production and consumption in the context of tourism destinations